On Saturday 24 December 2011 00:13:34 jdow wrote: > On 2011/12/23 23:34, Marko Vojinovic wrote: > > I'd say that uncontrolled nuclear pollution is the single most > > irresponsible thing that humans could ever do to this planet (bar a > > global thermonuclear war). Oil spills, CO2 emmision and other > > "environmental" stuff that people are talking about these days are a > > complete childsplay compared to this. > > Marko, look up Ramsar, Iran. It has a background radiation that would > probably leave you panicked if you found yourself there. On the average the > people there live longer and healthier than average for human beings. Did you look at the references in the wikipedia article on Ramsar? There is a reported 11% infertility rate in women living in VHBRA, as compared to the 3% in the nearby control group with normal background radiation level. There are also chromosomal abberations etc. studied by the Iranian scientists there. It is anything but a healthy environment. But regardless of that, Ramsar is a high *natural* background radiation area. This means that the radiation sources are typically underground and distributed more or less evenly around the area. This is in sharp contrast with nuclear reactor *fuel*, which can be distributed (in the uncontrolled natural environment) very heterogenously. The difference between natural radiation sources and nuclear fuel is mainly in the fact that fuel is "enriched", ie. it has rather higher concentration per unit volume than any natural piece of radioactive rock sitting around in Ramsar. This has consequences, and it can also be life-threatening if one comes close to such a source itself without protection (Marie Curie being the most famous first victim of radiation exposure). If it cannot be cleaned away, it becomes a life-threatening and environment-polluting "back-yard" neighborhood for everyone, in the course of a dozen thousands of years or more. What would you do with such places? Put a red tape and a "don't come any closer" sign? Such things don't exist naturally, not in Ramsar nor anywhere else on the planet. > The dangers of radiation are vastly overplayed by people who do not have > YOUR best interests in mind. No conspiracy theories, please! :-) I am quite familiar myself with the properties of interaction between radiation and matter (it's a part of my profession), and I have a (very rough) idea what kind of stuff happens in a human body exposed to radiation. There is *no* *way* I'm going to be convinced that such a thing can actually be considered healthy. And I'm not basing my opinion on what I was told by some random group of people on TV or elsewhere (in this matter at least). Best, :-) Marko -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
